


Lion's Den

by Arsenic



Category: Society of Gentlemen - K. J. Charles
Genre: BDSM, Captivity, Consent Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Past Violence, Trauma, Undercover, Whipping, non-con is not between Silas and Dom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:08:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27552841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: When an old friend of Cyprian's goes missing, the nature of Silas and Dom's dynamic becomes a crucial key to recovering him.AKA, Undercover in a BDSM club, but early-Georgian style.
Relationships: Dominic Frey/Silas Mason
Comments: 29
Kudos: 84
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Lion's Den

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dirigibleplumbing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirigibleplumbing/gifts).



> Thank you to my beta, who I shall endeavor to remember to come back and edit this note to thank by name once anonymity is lifted. Thank you as well to both of the people who helped brainstorm with me. As always, thank you to the mods for running this juggernaut.
> 
> Dear recip, as a reader who clearly enjoys plot, I was perhaps not the ideal writer for you, because nobody is out there calling plot my writing strength. I endeavored to write something based on your prompts that I hoped would at least allow for enjoyment. I had a fantastic time coming up with how to enact what I wanted with the help of friends, and writing this was a pleasure, so thank you, truly.

Silas ran a hand over his face and asked, “You need—I’m sorry what was that?”

David didn’t even have the good grace to wince. “You and Dominic to gain an invitation into Sinclair’s hellfire club.”

“David—”

“I’m calling in my chips, Silas. Every last one of them.”

Silas blinked. It was acknowledged between the two of them that David had saved his life, probably more than once, but also that Silas wasn’t his to command, not like the others. He would fall in line if he saw the wisdom of it, and only then. “This about your toff, then?”

“You mean your employer, Lord Vane?”

Silas shrugged. “Your employer as well, mate.”

David pinned him with a glare cold enough to invite frostbite. “No, it’s naught to do with him. It’s…of a personal nature.”

Silas sat with that for a moment. In the end all he asked was, “And it need involve Dom?”

David’s smile was cutting. “No prurient curiosity as to what peccadillo might have landed me coming to you on my knees?”

“En’t your knees I’m interested in, which you well know, and no. Maybe the rest of ‘em haven’t noticed, but I’m aware you’re human and old enough to have a past. Answer the question about Dom.”

Then, finally, David had the sense to drop some of the mask, nod slightly. “Yes, I’m sorry. He’s the one with the status to manage the invite. You’re the one who provides the level of mystique needed for it.”

“Presuming we get inside, what is it we’re to do once there?”

David took a slow breath. “A friend of mine from before—before my service to Richard. He disappeared a week ago. His trail goes cold shortly after he was taken into service by one of Sinclair’s group.”

“A week,” Silas said.

David pursed his lips. “Just see what you might find. That’s all I ask.”

Silas clapped a hand on David’s shoulder. “I’ll speak to Dom.”

* * *

It took Julian and Ash whispering in some ears. Evidently, employee of the Tax Office did not strike the hellfire set as compatible. Silas had the sense from the wording of the invite that it had been earned on the merits of their desire to sneer at the gentleman and his street rubbish. Silas’ stomach curdled at the awareness that their interest was prurient, as though Dom was some circus exhibit. He wouldn’t have agreed had there not been a life at stake, had David not been using powder to hide the circles beneath his eyes, had Silas not owed David and cared that he owed him. But all of those things were true.

Also, Dom had said quietly, “David does not ask things of us. He is asking this.”

Which was how Silas found himself dressed just respectably enough to highlight his lack of true respectability, Dom at his knee, _leashed_ , at the start of a weekend in Sinclair’s country seat. He was sipping a Scotch, occasionally holding the glass to Dom’s lips. The alcohol burnt through his lungs, down to the pit of his stomach, but it also calmed him enough to stay steady. 

Dom had his hand wrapped loosely around Silas’ ankle. If he let go at any point, Silas would get them out of there, no matter the cost. 

It was barely past dark when “the entertainment” had arrived. Three women and two men, although, Silas couldn’t have said for certain that two of the girls were older than sixteen. One of the men was Elias, David’s friend. The illegitimate son of a naval merchant with East India, and the local mistress he’d all-but dragged back to English shores with him only to abandon for a woman with a dowry two years later, Elias had grown up with David, their mothers the best of friends. 

According to David, Elias was quiet and bookish, as unlikely to get into trouble as Richard. He had recently managed a promotion from second footman in a rather small household to first in Viscount Eccles service. The position apparently came with a few unmentioned duties. He looked as if he’d gone ten rounds in a prize fight and lost every single one. None of the others looked any better.

Five lives at stake, then, and if the strength of the hold Dom had on his ankle was any indication, Silas wasn’t the only one who had ratcheted up the tally.

Two of the women had already had their clothes ripped off of them—literally, Silas could see what remained of their shifts—and were performing with each other at the behest of three of the club member’s catcalls and lewd suggestion, with the occasional crop smacking for encouragement. Silas had never seen two women look less interested in touching each other and more terrified about being in the other’s arms. 

Out of the periphery of his eye, Silas could see Elias being taken from both ends by Wimbourne and Sinclair, who Silas had clocked as paramours over the course of the evening. Neither was being gentle. Silas thought they might be having a silent competition as to who could get the most adverse reaction from the man.

The second man was being used as a table—and occasional ash tray—for Braye and Strickland. The last woman, the one he hadn’t accounted for, was suddenly in front of him, on her knees. She’d lost her clothing as well, although whether she’d taken it off or had it taken off, Silas couldn’t say. Without taking her eyes off the floor, she asked, “How may I please you?”

Silas took a slow breath in and forced himself to keep his tone as flippant and dismissive as possible. “Sorry, love, you’re not my type.”

She was clearly trying to figure out how to counter that, small tremors running through every inch of her body, when Camden wandered over from the woman-on-woman tableau and eyed Silas with an almost-indifferent calculation. “No, your type is men far too good for you willing to bend over and take it.”

Dom’s hand became a vice on Silas’ ankle even as Silas managed his most glacial smile. “Jealous, Edward?”

With his prick still in Elias’ mouth, Sinclair laughed. It was a brash laugh, calculated to further enrage Camden. When he spoke, though, he said, “What does he have to be jealous of, Mason? For someone who was promised to be rather entertaining, your reputation appears to be all talk.”

“My reputation,” Silas said, neither a question nor a challenge, but he held Sinclair’s gaze until the other looked away, pretending renewed interested in Elias.

Having won that round, Silas lifted the foot attached to the ankle Dom wasn’t holding and pressed the heel portion of his boot down into the meat of Dom’s left thigh until Dom broke, gasping. His grip didn’t loosen. Silas could feel the eyes of just about everyone in the room on the, but he kept his focus on Dom. “Well, toff? Seems they want a show.”

Without looking up from the floor, Dom shook his head, just one shake, but sharp. Silas reacted swiftly, pulling him by his hair, which shocked a cry out of him, and bending him back ever so slightly, to where Silas could bite at his neck, just above the collarbone, until he broke skin. It was something they’d agreed upon, that specific spot, the extent of the bite. Even so, the copper-salt heat on Silas’ tongue, his lips, made his stomach churn. 

He made certain the blood was clear on both Dom’s neck and his own mouth before wrenching Dom away, dropping him so that he fell back to his knees between Silas’ legs. “You know your place.”

Dom’s hand was back on his ankle. He shook his head again, this time catching Silas’ gaze, _pouting_ , the cheeky bugger. If they’d been on their own, Silas might have laughed before hauling Dom over his lap and making sure he couldn’t sit for a week.

Instead, he reached down and undid Dom’s trousers with cold focus. Then he reached in, took hold of Dom’s balls and slowly pulled them away from Dom’s body. When Dom whimpered and tried to follow with his hips, Silas said, “No. You know what will make me stop.”

Frantically, Dom undid Silas’ falls and took his cock out, getting it in his mouth as quickly as he could. His hand was back on Silas’ ankle practically before Silas could feel the absence. Silas leaned back and said, “Down you go.”

When Dom had swallowed him to the root, Silas closed his eyes as if Dom’s mouth was merely a cocksleeve and said, “There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

* * *

No sooner had Dom swallowed, cleaned Silas with his mouth, and then neatly tucked him away, did Camden try to turn Dom to him. Silas was on his feet, between the two men, without even being wholly aware he’d moved. “Touch him again, and your hand is only the first part I’ll take off.”

Camden spat on his cheek. “I could hang you by your balls from the front gates of this estate with a sign saying I had done it and nobody would so much as mention it at the next ball. Take one hair from my head and you’ll be hanged before you can figure out what to do with it.”

Silas shrugged. “Won’t do you much good when you’re dead.”

Wimbourne, pulling out of Elias with an abandon that caused the other man to whimper, said, “Back off, Ned. Can’t you see Frey is his pet? Of course, it is rather a shame.”

Silas heard the shift in Wimbourne’s tone. Without taking his eyes off Camden, he said, “Oh?”

“This isn’t a club for simple love taps and kissy games. I suppose we can all agree that it is in everyone’s best interest that nothing of this evening be spoken of, and you can be on your way.”

Despite the fact that it was pouring outside and the country roads would be treacherous at this time in the evening, Silas would like nothing more. But if they could have left right then, they wouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Silas asked, “Because I don’t share?” That wasn’t an option. But if they gave him something else.

“Because you spoil him,” Sinclair said, his chin on Wimbourne’s shoulder. 

Silas finally tore his gaze away from Camden to turn cold eyes on Wimbourne. “Oh?”

That was when he saw that Sinclair was holding something out to him, a clear challenge. Silas’ eyes flicked to the cat o’ nine in Sinclair’s hand, and his world narrowed to nothing more than the feel of Dom’s hand on his ankle, the thumb now stroking his skin, and the sound of one of the women, maybe one of the girls, crying.

He took the cat with deliberation, forced himself to take a breath, and looked down at Dom. “Undress.”

* * *

Dom’s breath hitched, and normally, normally this would be where he’d fight a bit, Silas knew. If Dom so much as said the word, “please,” Silas wasn’t going to be able to go through with this, and as though Dom fully understood that, he simply began unbuttoning his shirt. Then again, perhaps he did. Dom was one of very few people who knew of Silas’ scars.

Dom was efficient in the removal of his clothing, something he hadn’t been in a long while now. Usually that was part of their interplay. He stripped off the last of his underclothing and folded it all into a neat pile, then asked, so _so_ obediently, “Where would you have me, sir?”

Silas heard what he couldn’t say. Heard the “this isn’t us, nothing about this is us, this is something we are in together, and will come out of together.” It was the only thing that allowed him to say, “Against the wall, arms above your head, hands flat. I don’t need to restrain you, do I?”

Rather than answer, Dom followed the order, flexing his fingers before flattening them out. A signal: systems still on. If Dom’s hands came down, they were done.

If asked later, Silas wouldn’t have been able to even guess at the length of time they went for. Everything in the world was reduced to the areas of Dom’s back it was safest to hit, the level of pressure needed to hurt but not harm, the necessity of keeping his own façade of cold disinterest in place.

Skin broke, a bright red line welling up, and Silas stopped. Dom hadn’t flinched, the tenor of his moans hadn’t changed, but then, Dom was practiced at sinking into pain. And Silas couldn’t say for certain how much difference there was between the sting of the hit, and that of skin splitting open. To him, it had all been terrible. 

He managed to say, “I don’t like my toys marred.” He managed to breathe, managed not to run from the room like a child, not to be sick all over himself. He wasn’t sure how.

He managed to sit there, in that room, with those men, as if he wasn’t considering murdering every last one of them. At some point, under the guise of bringing refreshment to Silas, Dom wandered away and made contact with Elias for a few seconds. Silas only noticed because he was all-too aware of Dom, of the slow way he was moving, how beautifully straight he held his shoulders despite the ache.

When Dom brought back the drink, settling between Silas’ legs, he murmured, “He’ll get the word to the others. Plan still in place.”

* * *

Strangely, or perhaps predictably, actually getting the captives free of the estate turned out to be the easiest part of the entire ordeal. The house was lightly staffed, presumably for discretionary purposes, and the last of said staff was abed shortly after securing the five captives in a locked attic room. Sinclair and his cronies were either snoring on sofas, having given into drunken slumbers, or, in the case of Sinclair and Wimbourne, had found bed together.

Silas was in charge of picking the lock, which was laughably simple from the outside, and with tools. David had made them both memorize the layout of the house. Silas hadn’t asked how he’d managed to acquire that information. With David, often it was best not to know.

When the door opened, one of the women, the one Silas thought was probably youngest, sobbed. Elias got in front of her, for all that he had to struggle to his feet and looked as though a gentle breeze might topple him. Silas stepped back to appear less of a threat. Dom whispered, “Elias, yes? I told you, Cyprian sent us.”

Elias blinked. “Foxy really—”

Dom nodded. “Yes. He has been concerned for your whereabouts. He’s just off the property, and we’ve a route to get there quickly and safely, if you’ll follow.”

Elias turned to the others and said, “Come now, if Foxy’s planned this, it will work. We just have to go with these men.”

Turning back to them, he said, “I’m not sure if Rosaleen can walk. And I—” He squared his shoulders. “I haven’t the strength, just now, to carry her.”

“Which one is Rosaleen?” Silas asked.

Elias eyed him uncertainly before pointing to the oldest of the women—perhaps in her twentieth year—with black hair and blue eyes that were a bit worrisomely glazed over. Silas knelt beside her and said, “We’re going to get you to a doctor, Miss Rosaleen, but first you have to let me help you out of here.”

He wasn’t certain how cognizant she was, but she whimpered into his shoulder, muffling her cries, when he hoisted her up into a bridal carry. Dom was waiting at the door. Silas nodded and the others filed one-by-one between them. The path David had laid out avoided going anywhere near where members of the hellclub might be woken. At worst, they might wake the help. David had given them instructions—and blunt—for if that occurred.

In the end, however, they made it past the gates and to where David was waiting, a covered wagon at the ready. The rain, thankfully, had lessened to a misting, and while they were all a bit damp by the time they arrived, they were not waterlogged. David drew Elias to himself, Elias coming easily, clinging. Over Elias’ shoulder, David said, “I see you picked up a few extras.”

Dom looked at the wagon and said, “I see you were prepared for this eventuality.”

Glancing at the others, David gave a clipped nod. “It seemed that where one person had disappeared, others might have.”

Silas asked, “Is there padding?” Looking down at the woman in his arms he said, “She needs a doctor. Sooner rather than later.”

David gave Elias one last squeeze and said, “Come, let us get situated and be off.”

* * *

The doctor was waiting at Arrandene, and although a single room had been set up for Elias only, it took David less than half an hour to have all of their little band of refugees settled and waiting to be seen to, most urgent to least. Sitting next to Elias, their heads bent together, David caught Silas’ questioning gaze and came over. Silas said, “I want the doctor to see to Dom when he’s finished with the others.”

Dom said, “Absolutely not.”

“Dom—”

“What happened?” David cut in.

Silas opened his mouth but Dom didn’t give him time to speak, immediately stating, “We had to put on a bit of a show. I am _fine._ Nothing a bath and a little bit of liniment won’t take care of.” He gave Silas a stern look. “You’ve given me worse on an average Wednesday.”

David asked uncertainly, “Silas?”

Silas turned on his heel. “I’ll talk to the staff about the bath.”

He could feel their gazes on him, worried and heavy, but if he tried to explain he wouldn’t be able to breathe. Logistics he could manage.

Once in the kitchen, he helped the maids to haul the water to the quarters designated for Dom when he was in residence. The strain in his shoulders was more intense than usual after the exertions of the evening. Dom appeared as he was finishing with the final pail, closing the door behind the last maid. He paused at the door. “I’m sorry.”

Silas shook his head. “You found a way to keep me informed. Did the best you could under the circumstances. I should have figure out how to—”

“Stop.” The command was quiet, but absolute. Dom crossed the room to him, until they were standing in each other’s space, Dom’s hands flat against Silas’ chest, his forehead pressed against Silas’. “You know I love what we do. Love that you push me to the places I think I don’t want to go, only to find I belong, love knowing that no matter what, you will catch me when I finally fall. I love that what we do means that I can trust you with my life, my body, my sanity. Which is exactly what I did this evening. And I was perfectly right to do so. My question to you is, does the reverse stand?”

Silas took a shaky breath, pressing himself more tightly against Dom. “Do I trust you?”

“No, I know you trust me. Do you trust me to know your limits, though? To catch you when they’ve been violated?”

“From—from the very first, you saw that I—”

“When you looked at that table, for just one moment, your eyes, which were one of my favorite things about you from the very start, flashed with a sort of panic, a ring of remembrance. I never wanted to see it again. Even then.”

“Of course I trust you.” Saying the words was as easy as breathing, as swallowing.

“Then listen to me, and believe me. There were no jeering crowds tonight, baying for my blood, there was only you and me.”

Silas opened his mouth, but Dom put a finger to it, shaking his head. “Only you and me. There was no punishment for actions, and there certainly was no torture. A fire poker is merely a fire poker. One who wields it can choose to beat another with it, or to stoke a fire. I know that the cat has a specific purpose, but that does not mean it cannot be used in another manner. What you did tonight was an act of faith, in me and in us, and I took it as such.”

Silas closed his eyes. “I could _feel_ their eyes. It was—” Air felt sticky in his throat, heavy in his lungs.

Dom kissed him. “Bathtime.”

“You need to soak.”

“No doubt so do you. We can share.”

Letting his eyes flutter open, Silas said tiredly, “If you’re looking for anything more than a bath and me working the liniment in, I don’t know that I have it in me.”

Dom cupped his face. “I’m not looking for anything you don’t have to give.”

* * *

The water helped. For one thing, it gave Silas the opportunity to truly look at the damage and find that Dom hadn’t been playing it down. He would certainly be inflamed and sore for the next week or so, bruised for a bit after that, but the one spot where the skin had broken, which was no larger than the tip of Silas’ finger, was the worst of it. There would be no scars, no unrelenting signs of cruelty branded into his skin.

Dom, who had made clear his preference for keeping his marks more than once, folded the way Silas wished. He allowed Silas to fuss at him, cleaning the area gently more than once. Silas took his time everywhere else as well, massaging at Dom’s neck and head while washing his hair, showing care in the scrubbing of the rest of him, a growled “mine,” falling from his mouth from time to time.

Dom, normally one to tease a bit when Silas got particularly possessive, just hummed. And when Silas had finished in his ministrations, Dom turned to him. “My turn.”

Silas draped his arms over the sides of the tub, opening himself up. Dom took to caring for him in a way that seemed oddly familiar in its focus and intensity. Silas closed his eyes and after a moment, it clicked. Opening them again to look at Dom he asked, “Did you have David teach you valet tricks?”

“They’re skills, not tricks,” Dom said, in a passing imitation of David, and for the first time since they’d begun this whole charade, Silas laughed.

The water had cooled by the time Dom was satisfied, but Silas didn’t even think to hurry him. They stepped out together, drying each other in front of the fire. Silas took a few cushions from the sitting area and the extra blanket folded at the edge of the bed and lay them in front of the fire, so that he could apply the liniment there, in the heat.

He lost himself in the task, the too-warm skin of Dom’s back, the tightened muscles. Eventually Dom said, “Love, I’m going to fall asleep.”

Silas knew if he drew back the curtains, morning would be struggling over the horizon. He didn’t care. Helping Dom to his feet, he said, “To bed with us.”

In the quiet dark of the room, they stumbled the distance to the bed, and under the heavy cover of blankets. Dom folded himself around Silas and said, “Sleep, mine.”

* * *

Silas woke, struggling free of the blankets which, at that moment, mimicked the restraints of his nightmare. He managed, but also tumbled to the floor, where he stayed, hands splayed in the carpet, trying to get his bearings. His breath was so loud in his own ears, he nearly didn’t hear Dom say, “Silas?”

He meant to grunt or give a sound of reassurance. He most assuredly did not mean to bite out, “I was nineteen.”

The only answer to that was the sound of Dom getting out of the covers. Silas felt Dom settle on the floor next to where he was still on all fours, couldn’t seem to move. The floor was beneath him, solid and certain, and anything else seemed precarious.

Quietly, Dom said, “A child.”

“No. There—there are no children where I’m from. Certainly not by nineteen.”

“Perhaps there are no innocents. There are children. And you still were one.” 

Silas was still considering this when Dom came around to his front and tipped his chin up. “Tell me?”

Silas shook his head. “It’s in the past—”

“You are kneeling the on the floor, Silas Mason. I’ve not seen you get on your knees for anyone, ever. But here you are. When you met me, I was living in the moment Richard realized what I was. Living inside that disdain as I had been for well over a decade’s time. And every time we spoke of it, it was as if you reopened the wound, cleaned it out, made it more liable to heal. Sometimes we have to give into our past to force it to let go of us.”

Silas fell slightly forward, into Dom, who helped him stand, and the two of them made their way to the sitting area near the fire. Dom rang for tea, which Silas almost protested before remembering it was at least mid-morning.

The tea arrived shortly, with what seemed to be half the contents of the kitchen. Dom handed Silas a cup while preparing them both plates. Silas wasn’t hungry, but the tea was nice. It helped remove some of the psychosomatic chill from his bones.

When he’d drained the first cup, he set it down and said, “We were kept in the gaol, of course, first to await the trial, and then, to await the punishment. Harry’s parents and me. Food was minimal and sleep was…elusive.”

Dom placed a piece of buttered croissant to Silas’ lips, and Silas took it, finding to his surprise that his body was hungry, even if his mind hadn’t realized it. Dom handed over the pastry and Silas made quick work of it, along with downing a second cup of tea.

“It’s—it’s not just the whipping. The things the crowd screams, the very people you’re going to that post for.” Silas stopped for a moment. “I’d told myself I wasn’t going to cry out. Wasn’t going to let them see I was afraid or hurt or—” he waved his hand. “The things I suppose we think matter when we’re nineteen and more ego than anything else.”

Dom made him stop again, this time for coddled egg, followed by a few slices of orange. When he’d had enough he put the orange back on the plate. “They put me in the stocks. I—it was hard to breathe. Bit right through my tongue after the fifth lash. Thought I would die by the eighth. I’d broken my arm in the work house as a lad, lived through the fever that killed my mum and younger sister, and I’d never imagined pain like that.”

Silas looked at his teacup to find it had been refilled. His hands shook, and it was a moment before he could safely lift the cup to his mouth. “After the tenth…mostly the memories are sense-driven. I was sick at one point. Hadn’t much anything in me to be sick on, so it just tensed up my muscles. I screamed then.”

Dom’s hand threaded its way into the hair at the back of Silas’ head, his palm resting against Silas’ neck. Silas sank into the touch. “We had allies in the crowd. They took us to one of our group’s home. She was a midwife. Only one of us who had any medical training. I got sick anyway. Wounds turned green, had a fever so high, ranted so hard they all figured I’d die. Not sure how I didn’t.”

“There was a boy of about eleven who desperately needed you to stay alive, for all that he had no idea at the time,” Dom said.

Silas looked at him. “Maybe. It took months to recover. Not enough food to put weight back on, not enough time to sleep. Winter came hard. Jobs had to be taken which caused the wounds to reopen. It felt like a year before I could move without pain again, without having to fight against weakness.”

Dom tucked a hair behind Silas’ ear. “I’m sorry.”

“For what part, Tory?” Having told the whole tale, Silas felt like he could sleep a hundred years.

“For the way you were tortured for what you believed, for the way you never got to be a young man, for last night.”

Silas blinked. “Can I see it? Your back?”

Dom didn’t hesitate. Silas could see where his movements were stiff, but when his nightshirt came off, the skin underneath, although red and raised with mottled bruising beneath, was not the stuff of Silas’ nightmares, not even near to. Carefully, Silas put a finger to one of the lines. Dom hissed. Silas knew that hiss, though, and it was not one of displeasure. A blush rose on Dom’s nape. “Sorry.”

Silas took a moment to consider. He wasn’t certain that what he wanted to do was right, whether it would help or hurt. There really was only one way to find out, though. In a voice Dom wouldn’t question, he said, “Go lie face down on the bed. Hands in fists.”

It was an alternative to grabbing the headboard, which Silas thought might be a bit too much on Dom’s shoulders right now. If Dom needed to, he would just open his hands, and they’d stop. At the order, Dom cocked his head. After a moment, half the tension in him flooded out and he rose to do as bid.

* * *

Silas took time to get his head on. It was just them in this room, just them and his decisions, and Dom’s acquiescence. Dom’s trust. When his breath was steady, he warmed his hands in front of the fire, and took the small pot of balm he’d used last night.

He strode over to the bed, stripped out of his own nightshirt, and straddled Dom. “Whose are you?”

Dom turned his head to the side so that he could catch Silas’ gaze, give him the full measure of his impertinence as he said, “Mine.”

Silas raised both eyebrows at that. “Ah. Is that so?”

Covering his fingers in the salve, Silas ran his pointer finger up the line of Dom’s spine, eliciting an arch and a bit of a yowl, but Dom’s fists were against Silas’ legs in this position and the clench of them didn’t alter. Silas went to work, half kneading the salve into the skin, half working at muscles that tightened over sitting too long in the office. Dom squirmed and panted and even begged—although for what, he left to the imagination—but his fists stayed clenched, battering unconsciously against Silas’ calves.

When Dom broke into his first sob, Silas asked, “Shall we try this again?”

“Go bugger yourself,” Dom replied, although it was somewhat muffled by the fact that he was also pressing his face into a pillow.

“No,” Silas said, “no, I don’t think so. Not when I’ve got your ass right here for the taking. That is what you really want, isn’t it?”

“No,” Dom said, but his surety was faltering. Silas pushed at a particular knot immediately below the right shoulder, pressing into one of the welts, and Dom bucked, a high pitch whine coming from the back of his throat.

“All you have to do is admit you’re mine, every inch of you. Your back, your mouth, your hungry little arse.”

Panting, Dom spat back, “You’re. Mine.”

Silas nearly lost his rhythm. It wasn’t that the sentiment hadn’t been voiced before. But not like this, not when they were in these roles. At the last second, he regained his focus. “I don’t recall asking to whom _I_ belong.” He punctuated the thought with a slap to Dom’s shoulder blades that normally wouldn’t have even earned him a squeak, but with all the abuse that skin had taken, Dom groaned. “I ordered you to tell me to whom _you_ belonged. A standing order.” He slapped Dom again.

“You! You, I belong to you, I’m yours,” Dom babbled. “Please, Silas.”

“Please? Please what?”

Dom sobbed again, “Give me your bloody prick, you absolute fuckster.”

Silas reached for the oil by the bed. “You used to have such nice manners, I really think I’ve been a terrible influence on you.”

“Finally, something you and Richard can agree on,” Dom said, his voice as shaky as the rest of him.

Having oiled his cock, Silas put his palms on Dom’s shoulder blades and leaned into them even as he drove into Dom without any prep. Dom screamed so loudly that even with his face fully buried in the pillow, Silas was intensely glad Richard’s staff was the most discreet in all of the empire. 

“If you wish to come, all you need do is thank me politely,” Silas said, his palms still holding a significant portion of his weight against the welts as his hips drove slowly, but deeply, into Dom.

“Piss off,” Dom gasped.

“Very well, when you feel like it, then,” Silas said mildly, letting his own orgasm build, the heat of Dom’s skin familiar under his fingers, his breathy, needy gasps the same as always. Softly, he murmured, “You were right. It was just us. Nobody but us.”

Dom mewled and said, “Thank you, thank you, Silas, please, I need—” 

“Come, love,” Silas interrupted, and Dom tensed around him, shuddered through the pleasure. It went on long enough that Silas found himself soothing his hands down Dom’s back, gentling him through it. 

At the tail end, Dom mumbled, “Yours,” and Silas let his own orgasm crest, leaning over onto Dom’s back, telling him things about how lovely he was.

* * *

The second time Silas awoke he felt a bit more at home in his own skin. Dom was still sleeping, and no matter how cavalier he was being about the whole experience, his body needed the rest. Silas once again checked to make certain he hadn’t further damaged the skin. The salve seemed to be doing its work, and Dom’s muscles were unusually lax, either from the pounding Silas had given them, or the sex, or both. Either way, it calmed Silas, made it possible for him to slip on a pair of trousers and a shirt and make his way down to the kitchen.

Cook had begun making dinner. To her left, one of the younger girls from the prior evening was ever so carefully peeling potatoes. She put the knife and potato down when he came in the kitchen and curtsied. Silas said softly, “None of that now. I’m the bookman here, picked up off the streets same as any other working person. Silas Mason.” He held his hand out.

“Caro Miller,” she responded, shaking his hand. “Mr. Cyprian, he said maybe there could be a post for me here.”

Silas caught Cook’s eye and smiled at Caro, “Yes, I imagine David will find something.”

Cook was kneading a truly enormous amount of dough. Her arms were twice the size of Silas’ and he thought if Dom had been the type to go for women he’d probably have been in trouble. Particularly as she had a soft spot for Dom. He asked, “Need help?”

She laughed. “You’ve a bachelor’s knowledge of the kitchen, Mason, don’t think I don’t know it.”

Silas didn’t deny it. “I’m good for brute labor.”

She grinned but shook her head. “Jess stepped out to the ice house for some cream, she’ll be back shortly. Between Caro, her, and me, we’re set.”

Silas nodded and went to the hearth to pour himself water for tea. When he’d gotten the leaves steeping, Caro asked, “Is…is your friend all right?”

Cook raised an eyebrow at that. Silas grimaced. “He’s sleeping, but yes, he’ll be all right. Tougher than he looks.”

“Neither you nor David telling me Mr. Frey needed something special. What do I even keep the two of you around for?” Cook asked.

Silas didn’t answer. He thought it was self-evident it was because the two of them made Dom and Richard happy.

* * *

Silas came back to the room bearing tea with several of Dom’s favorites, as well as a pail of ice with several flannels in it. Dom, who was still in bed but awake and reading, wandered over and claimed a kiss before looking at the spread. “Good lord, does Cook think I’m dying?”

Silas laughed. “One of the girls from last night was helping out in the kitchen, looking like a half-drowned kitten and asking after you. I can only imagine what Cook believes.”

While Silas poured tea and made plates, Dom took one of the flannels that had gotten damp enough from the pail. Once Silas sat down, Dom settled with his head on Silas’ thigh and gave the flannel to him. Silas spread it over the inflamed skin. Dom sucked a breath in but then made a pleased sound.

Silas had cut everything on Dom’s plate into bite-sized portions. He picked one up and put it to Dom’s lips. Dom took it easily, without flourish. Silas alternated between feeding himself and feeding Dom, changing out the flannels with regularity. 

The intimacy of it was breathtaking. Far more than sex, these quiet stretches where Dom simply allowed Silas to see to his needs, were the thing that seemed the most intensely personal of their interactions. Before Dom, he’d never imagined anything like it. It sometimes still felt unreal, as though he had created it out of sheer desire.

When they’d finished eating, Dom was shivering. Silas put the flannel back in the pail, drew Dom into a sitting position, handed him his tea, and draped a throw over his shoulders before sitting down next to him again. In between sips, Dom said, “I don’t think, until last night, today, I really understood who you were, all those years.”

“Hm?” Silas asked.

“I understood, cerebrally, that you were noble. That your willingness to fight for your beliefs against a system that would crush you for it was rather on the heroic end of things. That was merely you, though. Who you were, through and through. I don’t—I didn’t quite realize how it feels to, in some small bit, actually be a hero to someone.”

“Suspect the people I was championing might have a differing opinion of my actions, love.”

“You may be right. But they were actions taken for the common good of those people. And even if they weren’t aware, you were. The difference between you and me is that I needed someone to tell me I was good, you simply did good again and again and again, even when you were being told your efforts didn’t matter. You knew they did.”

Silas tipped his head back. “Did they?”

“Dare you to ask Jon and Zoe that.”

“Pax, Dom.”

“I am telling you that I understand why you have spent your life walking into the lion’s den and sitting in there, being torn to shreds. I am telling you that it has only deepened my admiration for you.”

“Dom—”

“Most of all, I’m telling you that if you never do it again, it will have been more than enough.”

“By whose accounting?”

“Does it matter? You don’t believe in a higher power.” Dom sat back far enough to lift an eyebrow at him.

Joking or not, Dom had a point with that. Perhaps the opinion of the person whose good esteem he valued the most on this earth was the only one that mattered. Tucking that away for consideration, he said, “It wasn’t your first time in the lion’s den.”

“Sorry?”

“You said you knew how I felt, being someone’s hero. Last night wasn’t the first time you were someone’s hero.”

“I don’t—” Dom caught Silas’ steady gaze and said, “Oh.”

Silas smiled, just a small quirk of his lips. “Oh.”

“Unfortunately, when it comes to you, I’ve found myself somewhat addicted to the feeling.”

Silas wasn’t inclined to cure him.


End file.
